The New School of Psychoanalysis
by Verdot
Summary: Veld and Vincent could write a bad romance. Well, if they could stop being bastards for five minutes.


"Well this explains a lot. I didn't think that you were always reading tragically intelligent literature and non-fiction."

Veld kept his pulp novel reading habits close to the vest--of course there wasn't much that he didn't anymore--but it was becoming increasingly clear that he couldn't hide anything from his partner.

Hmmph. _Partner._ If only that idiot kid hadn't gotten himself blown up and made Tally paranoid about solo missions. If only.

"Give that back."

Vincent squinted at the cover, silently sounding out the words. Dyslexia seemed to be the punk's only weakness, and it provided Veld enough time to retrieve his book and put it properly behind his back.

"Don't you have something better to do? Surely you haven't worked off your latest infraction."

"On a break. This is Shinra, not the salt mines."

Veld never did like the attitude, but it had gotten even more smug since that time he drank a little much and Vincent had mumbled something vaguely sexy in his ear. Which might have been acted out with a few improvisations on the counter of some closed up cafe they broke into.

"Only because Tally is fair and generous. If I were in charge--"

"You'd bring back the bad old days, I know."

Or maybe it was that time in Junon when Vincent feigned an injury and used his _perfectly human decency_ as a way to tie him to the bedpost.

"I'd bring back _discipline_ and I swear to Alexander if you turn that into something dirty there will be retributions."

"Your mind is the one that went there, I was just sitting here."

Actually it was probably something very basic and grade school playground rules; once Vincent Valentine knew he could get a person he took it as an invitation to press all the shiney buttons until the response he wanted crashed or popped in front of him. Considering his father was a scientist, he probably understood all the rules of stimuli before his ABCs.

He could read him like a book, which made Veld edgy as hell, to the point where he had started hiding out in Urban Development's lounge during his lunch break. Before that had been a storage room on the Turk floor, but that had made him lose one of his favorite ties and leave early that day in order to avoid getting marked up.

"Well you sit, I'm leaving."

If he didn't know that Vincent was an arrogant bastard, he could have sworn that the kid looked a little disappointed.

_ooo_

"You can't just go into places and wave a gun around--our primary mission is _information_ not shenanigans!"

He was livid. There was _Valentine_ reminding him again as to why Veld had opposed his employment from the start by acting like a spoiled asshole and completely disregarding _any_ sense of procedure. Sure, the Turks were quite a few unsavory things, more so as Shinra gained power, but they were first and foremost _research._ So what if it was the kind of research that required a sidearm at all times and a very good health plan. Pure mercenaries never had as much paperwork as they did.

"What does it _matter_. I got the damn files. I got them quicker than you would have with all that _bullshit_ you were spinning."

"Oh right, it's so much better alerting the _entire goddamn Sector_ that Shinra is obviously on the trail and that they should hide all traces of their illegal narcotics ring. At least fucking Valentine gets to be a cowboy and wave around a gun! What was I thinking?"

Veld could work with unpredictability. It fucked with his OCD sense of order, but once a person got used to chaos, it almost started to make sense. But his tolerance was _zero_ for reckless bullshit.

Of course, in addition to being talented, annoyingly perceptive, and a spoiled brat, Vincent was also _severely unhinged._ Veld had been working with him long enough to forget this fact most of the time, until the punk used a certain tone of voice that brought this issue straight to the forefront.

"You can't be both the hero and the villain, _Veld._ You're a murdering fuck, not some charming detective. You're a murdering fuck who _likes_ it. Just because you have a bullshit system for figuring out who is or isn't worthy of getting cut down doesn't change the way your breath hitches while it's happening or the look in your eye."

Veld was officially freaked the hell out. He'd never liked head doctors and Valentine's monotone psychoanalysis was enough to give him a complex. It came out of nowhere, and left a heavy feeling in his throat, which made no sense considering that this argument had been sparked by Valentine's inappropriate behavior, not his. Veld Dragoon was fucking _textbook._ Always would be.

"Mr. Dragoon? Tally wants to see you in her office."

He shouldered past the messenger quickly, so that Valentine wouldn't see the relief on his face at not having to continue the conversation. Or not. It was unpredictable with crazy people.

_ooo_

Between the lecture from Tally and Valentine deciding it was a fine week to use up his vacation hours, Veld spent a lot of his lunch hours trying to piece together the incident. _Incident._ If not for the cuttingly close remarks Veld might have written it off as just another time that the kid thought he was improvising creatively.

His latest pulp novel, the one that he'd been interrupted reading, sat forlornly on his desk. Back in the days when he'd lived at Tally's he used to hide them under his pillow and hope she didn't find him reading what was basically sensationalist trash. He didn't even know why he liked them, after reading one he knew the plot; the detective would find the bad guys, get the dame, and sometimes make off with all the money. Add in the occasional third act twist where the dame was the criminal or the detective had a split personality that actually did the crime and there was some variation, but not really that much.

Certainly wasn't titillated by the covers, either. The art tended to be badly proportioned and the damn always one of those obvious slutty types or the almost disturbingly young looking innocents. Neither were his type by a long shot. He usually pictured something else, especially when they had witty dialogue with the protagonist--

Son of a bitch. The _dame._

_"Well good afternoon, miss. I couldn't help but notice what you were reading."_

"You like Dostoevsky?"

"A little. Mideelese translations tend to be a little rough. But I applaud you for attempting."

"Most of the guys around here think Dostoevsky is a drink or a gun. So what sort of intelligent gentleman walks in here anyway?"

"What sort of girl with such good taste works in a place like this?"

"Are you interrogating me?"

"Am I? Well I thought I was just making conversation."

"Does that work on all the girls, cop?"

"Only the dumb ones. I take it my suit's not expensive enough?"

"No, your partner's waving a gun around behind you."

"VALENTINE. WHAT IN THE HELL?!"

Veld decided that Vincent had been on vacation long enough.

_ooo_

"Quite a vacation, laying around on the couch in your underwear watching gross medical investigation shows and eating cheetos. Classic."

He was glad he had been a hooligan before Tally had found him. He wouldn't have been able to get into Vincent's apartment so easily and silently and make such an entrance. The look on his face was priceless.

"What the hell are you doing here." Vincent tried to cover up his initial shock with a cheeto and a nonchalant tone.

"Dr. I-Got-Your-Number Dragoon would like to point out that acting like a possessive brat is no way to endear yourself to the only person that's willing to put up with your crazy ass on a daily basis. It's also a poor way to cover up your insanity."

"Well doctor, you can tell that arrogant bastard to shove it and find another punching bag."

It was almost like they'd traded roles. Hard to tell when the kid was being serious because he didn't have the emotional gauge that most people did, being the maladjusted shit that he was. But Veld had done the research on this one, and if he was going to get some analysis shoved at him, he was going to shove it right back.

Push and shove was what kept them functional, after all.

"He'd furthermore like to point out that normal humans at least tell someone they'd like them to be faithful instead of cockblocking them by holding up some hole in the wall in Sector 6."

All perception and no self-reflection. They had an eye on each other's blind spots; that was survival. Blind spots were how you got shot and bled to death on some sidewalk. But survival didn't dictate tracking down what your partner read in their off time, especially after they'd tried to hide it. And it didn't dictate letting your injured partner use you as a pillow in hopes that they'd sleep better--even if they were faking it.

He let the hesitation in Vincent's response be an opening. "The can be remedied, however." _I'm sorry, I didn't know._

Vincent moved the bowl of cheetos and swung his legs to the floor, providing an empty space on the couch. "There's a marathon going on, another episode is on now. Want to watch?"

"Sure, kid."

It was probably a bad idea, but fuck if he cared at the moment. And the kid had a better couch than he did, rich bastard.

"Oh and Vincent?"

"Yeah?"

"It's fucking creepy that you watch that closely when we're killing things."

"Stop being so hot then."

Veld glanced at him sideways and smirked.

_ooo_

In the morning when he was making coffee--god, Vincent's apartment was so bare and undecorated, didn't the shit have money?--Veld couldn't help but notice another copy of the book sitting on the kid's counter.

"How the hell did you track that down?"

"The cover. I might be dyslexic but I'm not _blind._ And I was very disappointed when a title like 'Woman in the Dark: A Novel of Dangerous Romance' didn't turn out to be porn."

"You don't read porn at work, asshole."

"I don't know, considering all my successful cockblocks lately..."

"Shut up, Valentine."


End file.
